GEN News Highlights

Merck & Co. has extended a nearly year-old partnership with Bionomics, with the pharma giant agreeing to join the Australian biotech in developing new compounds for Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders of the central nervous system. The deal could net Bionomics up to $526 million.

The companies agreed to a research collaboration, under which Bionomics licensed its BNC375 program to Merck.

BNC375 is designed to work by targeting the α7 nicotinic acetyl choline receptor, a receptor that is critical to thought processes. Modulators of the "Alpha 7" receptor, for example, may improve memory and reduce brain inflammation in Alzheimer’s, according to Bionomics.

The collaboration will apply Bionomics’ ionX® drug discovery platform, a set of technologies designed to identify drugs targeting ion channels for diseases of the central nervous system. IonX® includes systems for high throughput electrophysiology for early, high-content evaluation of drug hits. The platform further validates and optimizes advanced leads through a suite of model systems including EpiMouse™, a novel transgenic mouse model of epilepsy.

Merck agreed to fund all research and development, including clinical development, as well as oversee worldwide commercialization of any products from the collaboration.

In return, Merck agreed to pay Bionomics $20 million upfront, and up to $506 million in payments tied to unspecified research and clinical development milestones. Bionomics is also eligible for undisclosed royalties on product sales.

“We believe that the combination of Bionomics’ innovative approach and technologies, within its ionX platform, has the potential to rapidly advance new treatments,” Deborah Rathjen, Ph.D., FTSE, Bionomics’ CEO and managing director, said in a statement.

In addition to ionX and MultiCore, Bionomics has two other tech platforms: Angene®, a drug discovery platform that incorporates genomics tools to identify and validate novel angiogenesis targets; and CSC Rx Discovery™, which is designed to identify antibody and small molecule therapeutics that inhibit the growth of cancer stem cells.

Jobs

GEN Jobs powered by HireLifeScience.com connects you directly to employers in pharma, biotech, and the life sciences. View 40 to 50 fresh job postings daily or search for employment opportunities including those in R&D, clinical research, QA/QC, biomanufacturing, and regulatory affairs.

If you have any questions about your subscription, click
hereto email us or call at (914) 740-2189.

You may also be interested in subscribing to the GEN magazine, an indispensable
resource for everyone involved in the business of translating discoveries at the
bench into solutions that fight disease and improve health, agriculture, and the
environment. Subscribe
today to see why over 60,000 biotech professionals read GEN to
keep current in the areas of genomics, proteomics, drug discovery, biomarker discovery,
bioprocessing, molecular diagnostics, collaborations, biotech business trends, and
more.